Photograph by Ken Wilson-Max, Alamy
The Eastgate complex in Harare, Zimbabwe, which opened in 1996, drew inspiration for its construction from the termite mounds that litter the African nation's rural countryside.
The first building to use passive cooling so fully, the Eastgate building's cooling system cost a tenth of conventional systems and uses 35 percent less energy than similar buildings in Harare. It works by absorbing heat into the walls of the building during the day, then using fans to pump the heat into the interior of the building at night.
But in the 20 years since the Eastgate building was designed, biologists have learned more about how a termite mound works, said biology professor Scott Turner, at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York.
"The Eastgate center was built upon a model of termite mound function that's been the standard model for about 50 years, and that model is almost entirely incorrect," Turner said. While he concedes that the building is "very effective," studying how termites actually move air around (which is more like the inhale-exhale cycle of a lung than a one-way wind tunnel) could "open up a whole new set of interesting ways of capturing wind to control climate." Concrete walls built with small pores could capture gentle breezes and funnel their energy into buildings' existing ventilation systems, he said.
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